Innocent
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: "You tried to love me. But perhaps you didn't try hard enough. I tried to stop you. But perhaps I didn't try hard enough." He's the evil villain who switched sides too late. She's the trapped innocent good girl who fought, lied, cried, and bled for him. From evil to good, from good to bad . . . the lines of being innocent start to get blurred. Dramione. AH, AU, OOC. T-Swizzle, yo.
1. one

**Author's Note: I love consecutive date days! Too bad today will be the last one for a loooong time. Anyway, here's my newest story. It originally started out as a _Thor_ fic with the pairing being Loki/Darcy but I'm still hesitant about the Thor universe and I know the Harry Potter one so well already so . . . .**

**It's Dramione. It will be OOC, AU, AH, basically _nothing like Harry Potter_. If you're reading this fic only so you can review and criticize me for not being perfect like JKRowling, please read the summary first, direct all hate mail to your asshole, and fuck you very much. I have a zero-tolerance level for mean bitchy people. The End.**

**Disclaimer: Taylor Swift and JKRowling are the literary sorceresses. Infringe them and I'll _Avada Kedavra _you. Siriusly.**

* * *

1

I guess you really did it this time. The world is on fire and hope is being singed like moths' wings on a flame even though we try to fight it and we dare to hope and believe in the future. Everything, however, is currently in a state of frozen shock and hushed tones whisper throughout the air. _Have you seen Remus? The Weasleys are over there. Nott, I am looking for a Nott . . .? I'm sorry, he didn't make it. No, you're mistaken, she must be in here somewhere, Ginny promised she'd stay in the Room of Requirement. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. _Hogwarts, as I knew it, is a battlefield of wreckage. Police cars are everywhere and sirens blare but they are simply feeble excuses of protection. You could easily decimate all of us with a snap of your fingers. Snap! Just like magic.

But then you left yourself in your warpath. The total chaos and destruction you had built around yourself all came crashing down when you let that sliver of humanity and compassion seep back into your bones. The darkness radiating all throughout your wellbeing faltered for one moment – that one, awful moment where you saw your mother and her pure, good blood spilling out onto the pavement – and you flipped the switch. From evil to good, dark side to light. At least, that's what everyone else thinks. I know better.

It was like you lost your balance on a tightrope and then lost your mind trying to get it back. You were there, hanging on the precipice of right and wrong. Like a pendulum, swinging back and forth, never making a final choice. Kill a few hundred, bad Draco. Save your mother from death, good Draco. Try to take over the world, bad Draco. Admit surrender, good Draco. There was never just one simple layer to you, a moral compass that always pointed straight to true north. You always had to do what was best for you, what would benefit you. Who you hurt along the way never mattered in the grand scheme of things.

But wasn't it easier in your lunchbox days? Wasn't it easier when you were young and your father had all of the answers and your mother was the prettiest lady in the whole wide world? Wasn't it easier when the stars shined brighter for you and there were no such things as monsters in closets? When the truth wasn't a lie and there was always a bigger bed to crawl in to when you got scared? Wasn't it beautiful when you believed in everything and everyone believed in you?

You weren't made to be like this. You were never supposed to be the villain or second-best. Home was never at the Manor with Lucius and Narcissa and Bellatrix. You were never supposed to be Draco.

So maybe fate can be re-written with a single choice of a remorseful parent who saved a son from a world of destruction. Or maybe life is pre-destined for a baby born in destruction to die and leave the world in destruction. Perhaps there is no such thing as science and everything is all magic and the will of the deities in the heavens above. Perhaps there is no such thing as magic and everything can be explained by science and theories and physics. Maybe soulmates do not exist and love cannot conquer all. Maybe love at first sight and happily ever after is simply a myth. Just. Like. You.

I tried to stop you. I tried to tell you that it was going to be all right, to just wait it all out and see that the world doesn't have to be ruled. That your string of lights is still bright to me. That who you are is not where you've been. That I believe you are a true king and hero and don't need a throne or crown to prove it. I believe that you are still an innocent.

You tried to love me. But perhaps you didn't try hard enough.

I tried to stop you. But perhaps I didn't try hard enough.


	2. two

(before)

2

She said, "Hello mister. Pleased to meet you." She smelled of daisies and morning dewdrops.

A young boy of about eleven or so was busy constructing a path to climb the formidable willow in front of him. This path would lead him to the pair of black Converse dangling by shoestrings off of one of the tree limbs some couple metres off the ground, the result of a 'harmless' prank played on him by his classmates. He figured that she was one of _them_ who had come over here under the guise of helpful whilst she gathered snide remarks and rude observations to report and laugh about with the class, and so he studiously ignored her.

It was the first day of school and although Hermione knew it was the first day any of the children in her year had been enrolled to Hogwarts, she felt as if already there was this divide between her and them. At her old preparatory school she had been dubbed friendly and helpful but was one of those invisible outcasts who was brought upon the circles of the socially popular only when they required the assistance of her brain and knowledge. She had been hoping that Hogwarts would be different, that she would be able to find a group of true friends that would love and appreciate here, but she had been greeted with lukewarm polite smiles at the best and cold indifferent sneers at the worst. So far she was attempting to strike up a conversation with this blond boy who was currently shoeless, his sock-clad toes wiggling in the damp dirt as he seemed to be strategising a way to climb the tree looming before them.

He wished she would go away. He didn't recognise her face from those other nameless mean tormentors who had decided to pick on him out of the other hundred students enrolled at Hogwarts, but she didn't seem especially bright since she was still here and breathing his air. She had eyed him curiously and opened her mouth a couple of times but made no move to engage in inane chatter while he obviously ignored her presence. Well, he tried to, anyway. She was kind of a hard person to ignore.

She was skinny and had knobby, scabbed over knees. There were cuts and abrasions all over her elbows and the palms of her hands but her wounds did not look to be the work of abuse and only the mindless self-inflicted harm of a young clumsy child playing outside. She was short and thin and looked as if a good gust of wind could easily blow her over if so inclined. There was nothing outstanding or overtly attractive about her – that bushy brown hair made it seem as if she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket or rubbed her head against a balloon before coming over to bother him – but he still found her silent boringness to be a nuisance.

And then, of course, she had to worsen everything by starting to cry.

She didn't mean to. She was tough and resilient and mostly let insults and negative passive-aggressive behaviour towards her roll off her back but lately the stress of pre-teen hormones and the transition to a new school that was basically just as awful as her old school was starting to grate on her nerves. And then this obvious misfit who was being bullied by these petty people even thought _he_ was more superior than her and treated her like she was lower than dirt even though she was only trying to be friendly and be a glass half-full type of person but now look at her. She'd been reduced to bawling like a baby in front of a complete stranger who seemed to loathe her before he'd even met her. Life's tough at eleven years of age.

The blond boy let out a big gusty sigh as if she were such an inconvenience. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded in a cultured English accent that hinted at wealth and high social status. He stared at her with exasperated eyes and a slight sneering scowl.

"N-nothing," she sniffed pitifully and continued on watering the ground with the salty drops from her eyes.

"Liar," he accused her. He should've left it at that. He should've turned his back on her and ignored her and focused on retrieving his shoes so he could abandon her and her awful crying. But that's not what he did: instead, he found himself watching her snivel and wail. There was no tugging in his heart to go comfort her, so he did nothing to help her besides stare at her as if she were truly bizarre.

"Everybody hates me and I don't know _why_," she moaned and cried a bit more.

"You haven't exactly given me reason to think why they shouldn't," he replied back in what could be described as cruelly. Or maybe that was just his natural voice.

She wiped her eyes and glared at him. "I don't just walk up to strangers and randomly cry," she protested and fought back the urge to stick her tongue out at him and his surly rudeness.

"I feel so honoured," he quipped back.

"You're mean," she stated.

He shrugged as if he were confused to why she would think different. He looked back in longing towards the willow tree that currently held his shoes hostage.

She huffed indignantly. "Staring at them won't levitate them to the ground, you know."

"Shut up."

She rolled her eyes at his childish remark. She then adopted a prim and proper voice as if speaking to a particularly daft person. "If you would just look, you would've have noticed earlier on that there is a knot by the base of the trunk that would be the perfect stepping point to hoist yourself up to that first branch over there."

He glared at her with flinty bluey-grey eyes. "I didn't ask for your help."

She narrowed her eyes at him accusingly. "You're afraid of heights," she said.

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not." But his eyes betrayed him and he stared at the shoes dangling precariously from a branch a couple metres off the ground. He gulped and sighed in defeat.

"Are too," she said with a smug little smile.

"I'm starting to see why everyone hates you," he told her. Her smile fell and the lights in her eyes dimmed at his cutting remark. He should have felt guilty for saying such a horrible thing to her but he didn't.

She stared up at the willow tree, blinking rapidly and praying that she wouldn't start crying again. He had found her weakness and was already exploiting it against her, and if that didn't say a thing about his perceptibly awful character then she didn't really want to stick around much longer and find out any more insecurities of hers he could fish out and take advantage of. Then again, she had found a limitation of his. Maybe she could use it to con him into being her friend. She liked to believe she was above such juvenile acts but she desperately wanted a friend and he was the only one who had bothered to talk to her all day (even if it was solely to insult and argue with her).

"If you're too chicken to get your sneakers, then _I_ will," she challenged him.

Unknowingly, she had stumbled upon his most dominant character trait: his competitiveness and his pride. And also, he really hated girls who didn't leave him alone despite his best attempts at being nasty. Usually those methods worked at chasing them away and leaving him in solitude but this girl, this one with the bushy brown hair and tendency to cry, was either plain stupid or incredibly brave. He was thinking she was on the stupid side.

"I'm not a chicken," he defended himself. Even to his own ears, the retort sounded weak and lame.

"What happens if you don't get your shoes back?" she inquired, sliding her eyes over to his face so she could see his expression.

He shrugged with a deceptive nonchalance. "The world doesn't end."

"Oh. That's good." She knew there was something he was keeping from her – she could tell by the twitchiness of the muscle in his jaw and the nervous way he ran his fingers through his wavy blond hair – but she didn't press him on the issue further. She figured he was only a stranger and was bound to have his little, dark secrets that she wouldn't be privy to. Instead, she darted towards the willow tree, dodged its whomping branches rustled by a strange and sudden gust of wind, and stepped on the knot at the base of the trunk. Abruptly, the branches stopped trying to take a whack at her and froze in their current position. It was odd, but she didn't dwell on the strange occurrence for too long. It was getting late and the car park was slowly emptying of Hogwarts staff and students who commuted to the school. Her own parents would be arriving soon to pick her up and drive her home for the evening. Hermione didn't think it would be best to keep them waiting because she was up in a tree retrieving shoes for somebody.

"Here you are." She tossed the knotted shoe-laced sneakers down to him before jumping down herself. The sudden hurtling impact of the ground buckled her right knee a bit and she was a bit breathless but she missed climbing trees and the freefall of jumping out of one. She knew her hair was a mess with twigs and leaves stuck in it like a hairy bird's nest, and there was a rip in her new plaid uniform skirt. However, those were the only marks she had made upon herself and that was quite an accomplishment for her since scabby appendages and face-plants on the concrete were a rather common occurrence for her.

The blond boy caught his shoes and unlaced them with a mild look of disgust on his face as he undid the knot. He then slipped them on to his feet, but that look of revulsion never left his visage.

"Would it kill you to say 'thank you'?" she demanded after a few more moments of him appearing like he had swallowed a lemon drop.

"_I_ don't say such trivial things as such," he responded in a scathing tone and a look of scorn to match.

A shiny black Infiniti rolled up just then, sparing him from seeing her response. A driver stepped out from the driver's seat and, using pristine white gloves typically utilised by house staff, opened a passenger seat in the back of the car. The blond boy sauntered up to the driver, ignored him, and slid into the Infiniti. The door shut behind him and the world was suddenly narrowed down to buttery leather seats, a dark interior, and tinted windows.

"Draco, who were you talking to just now?" a suit-clad figure in the front passenger seat inquired imperiously.

"No one, Father," the blond boy responded tonelessly.

"I don't believe I've seen her before. Is she anyone of importance?"

"She is simply a nobody, Father."

"Mm. Well, if that's the case see to it that you cease all sorts of contact with her immediately. It wouldn't do well to taint the future of the Malfoy enterprise with the presence of a 'nobody', now would it?"

"No, Father."

The boy's father nodded in satisfaction and then easily dismissed the girl by the willow tree from his mind. "Good. Now, Dobby, drive to The Leaky Cauldron –"

The boy in the backseat ignored his father and stared mindlessly out of the tinted window. As the Infiniti passed the willow tree, though, he caught sight of the bushy haired girl and the residual expression on her face in response to his parting comment. She lifted her eyes and they seemed to pierce through the tinting of the windows and straight into his eyes even though he knew she couldn't possibly even see the silhouette of his figure through these car windows. Thoroughly unsettled, he turned away from the glass.

* * *

**Author's Note: So there you are, our first look at an all-human Hermione and Draco. Lovely little misfits, they are, with one being an ass and the other overly-sensitive. This is definitely not a faerie tale because that was so not love at first sight for them.**

**Present tense will be Hermione's POV and include lyrics from "Innocent" by Taylor Swift.  
Past tense is 3rd person and switches between Hermione's and Draco's point of view.**

**They won't be snotty little brats for forever.**


	3. three

3

The girl who climbed trees and the boy who was afraid of heights did not cross paths again for a very long time. In this seven month time span, there were haircuts and homework not turned in; uneaten vegetables on dinner plates; temper tantrums and thunderstorms; black-tie social events and sullen expressions; flea-market bargaining and dining and whining; and, of course, more lost shoes and more climbing trees. It wasn't a lost shoe that brought them together this time, nor was it the willow tree's doing (although the tree was the single common point of interest for the two, each laying claim to it and arguing until they were blue in the face). No, the catalyst for this reunion was a birthday. Specifically, his.

"What are you doing here?"

He had come out here during his lunch break and was hoping for a bit of solitude so he could moan and groan to himself about why he hated birthdays and the month of April. Instead, he found her and her bushy hair walking up to the tree at the same time as he had. He knew she would pick one of the lowest-hanging branches to sit on which was quite a shame because he liked to sit on the ground with his back up against the tree. The problem here was that her dangling feet would then be at the perfect height to kick him in the face each time she felt like swinging them to the tuneless melody floating through her mind.

She stared at him with a slight hint of incredulity as if she could not believe how awful his countenance truly was. He stared back defiantly: he didn't like the way she was studying him, and he didn't even know why she was scrutinising him in such a judgmental way. He thought his question and the tone he had used was an acceptable amount of demanding, curiousness, and annoyance. She only heard an annoying demand.

"Hello to you, too," she responded breezily and headed over to the (magical) knot at the base of the willow tree. Apparently this willow _was_ strangely violent (depending on the weather and wind patterns its branches would fling and flail about and attack unsuspecting passerbys) and so it had been dubbed across the Hogwarts campus as the 'Whomping Willow'. At the moment, she was desperately trying to avoid being 'whomped' by one of the branches during her scamper to freeze the thrashing branches so she could climb up the tree in peace.

"I don't want you here."

Maybe she would have to let the tree hit that insufferable blond boy before she could find serenity here.

"You are breathing my air."

At least he was honest in his loathing towards her, she thought bitterly. Lately, her peers had taken to falsely complimenting her to her face and then criticising and laughing about her behind her back. She didn't know which was worse – being made fun of to her face or behind her back – but currently she simply wished people would just be straightforward and honest with their opinions to her.

"Leave," he commanded.

She was already perched in the tree on her favourite branch by this point so her response was a stubborn, lofty "No".

"It's my birthday. You have to do what I say."

She snorted. If that was his logic, everyday must be his birthday, then. "Says who?"

"Says me."

She laughed, a light cheery laugh filled with sunshine and daisies. "You're not the boss of me."

"I'm older than you so I'm the boss of you."

She rolled her eyes at the blond boy whose name she still did not know. Surprised by this revelation, she immediately sought to rectify this minor detail. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Why do you want to know?" was his belligerent reply.

She wondered how many brain cells of his would be damaged if she kicked him in the head. She figured that most seemed to already be defective and that another kick could only stimulate some sort of brain activity in that obstinate golden head of his. She swung her legs out in a seemingly careless motion and - thunk! – the soles of her Mary Janes lightly made contact with the side of his head. He jerked forward and scowled at her as he rubbed his head. She pretended not to notice.

"I need to know your name so I can properly wish you a happy birthday," she said, using his birthday as a cover to hide her true motive for speculating about his name. Friends told each other their names, right? She then realised that she had never told him her name, and she was stuck between puzzlement and hurt that he hadn't inquired of it so far.

"You can just say 'happy birthday'. You don't need a name to follow the sentiment."

Now her curiosity was piqued with his continuous deflection of her question. Unbeknownst to him, her curiosity and thirst for knowledge was just as – if not more – potent than his competitive streak and ego. She was stubborn at the very least and downright tenacious when something caught her attention.

"My name's Hermione," she told him, expecting him to answer with a standard _Nice to meet you_ or _How do you do_ or the obvious introduction of his own person. Predictably, the blond boy did not follow the polite rules of society.

"And I don't care," the blond boy said in a disinterested bored voice even though his mind was currently filled with a maelstrom of thoughts that may or may not have had anything to do with the annoying bushy-haired girl named _Hermione_.

She kicked him in the head again and once again ignored his yelp. "You should care," she told him stuffily. "I'm a Granger and my mother always told me to not take shit from anyone – especially a guy."

His eyes widened in surprise before he could stop his instinctive reaction. "You just cursed."

She froze. "I did, didn't I?" she said unhappily. "It's such a filthy habit. My mother always curses and it makes me cringe every single time I hear another one of those dirty words slip from her mouth. I had hoped I wouldn't pick it up, but I guess it's too late now."

"Say it again."

"What?" Her brow wrinkled in confusion. The boy was a person of few words and sometimes his blunt, half-sentences did not make any sense to her in the context of their conversation.

"That bad word. It started with an 'S', right?"

"You mean 'shit'?" she asked him, not knowing that she had cursed again.

He stared at her incredulously. "Shit," he said slowly, trying the word out. It melted like a snowflake on his tongue before he could even perceive that the word had been there. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."

Hermione giggled nervously. "Hey, it's not really necessary to say it –"

"Shut up," he demanded. "Shit." He turned towards her so his chest was parallel towards the tree trunk. He batted away her feet from his face and asked her in all seriousness: "Do I look different?"

"Different?" she repeated, not comprehending his thought process yet again.

"Yes, different," he said impatiently. With every word she spoke, his first impression about her stupidity only got reinforced into his mind. "Like a bigger nose or giant ears or a receding hairline or buck teeth or – or, well, _different_!"

"Er. No?" she said, wondering if this was a trick question or not.

"Father told me that if I cursed, something awful would happen to my appearance," he mumbled half to himself. In a louder voice, he said accusingly: "Are you lying to me? You are, aren't you."

She made to kick him in the head again at his stupidity.

"Stop that," he growled and caught her foot. She tried to wiggle it out of his grasp but he tugged to hard and suddenly she was falling out of the tree. It wasn't even one of her graceful freefalls – instead, she was tumbling and crashing and

"Ow," she whimpered once she finally hit the ground.

Something groaned unintelligibly beneath her. She tried to move off of him so he could get air (he was flat on his back and had unintentionally absorbed most of the impact of her fall) but she accidentally drove her elbow into his gut in her haste to shift positions.

"Shiiiit," he bleated pathetically.

She cracked a smile upon hearing that. "You know, your appearance has seemed to have been altered." His eyes widened in terrified fear and she had to fight to keep her smirk reined in. "You see, you've got a bit of dirt on your nose."

He decided then that he really did hate her; perhaps even more than he hated birthdays and the month of April.

* * *

**Author's Note: Short and sweet . . . for now. Thanks for reading.**


	4. four

4

"Why won't you be my friend?"

He looked up at the sound of her voice, startled out of his thoughts. This was their first interaction with each other away from the Whomping Willow and he found that she was a bother no matter where the social setting. He was irked that she had managed to sneak up on him; he prided himself on his constant vigilance and awareness of his surroundings, yet somehow she had snuck up on him. He should've seen her (God knows that bushy hair of hers could not camouflage an elephant) and he should've heard her (her breathing sounded as pretentious as her nosy voice). And why was she persistently talking to him? The others tormented him by calling him names and harassing him by taking his things; she, however, tormented him by talking too much and taking up his personal space.

Sneering, he replied: "You're just like _them_."

"No I'm not," she retorted defiantly. She resented that he even dared to place her in the same category with the insipid petty people they went to school with.

"Sure you are," he said with a nonchalant shrug, his demeanour going from cruel to indifferent within a matter of seconds.

"How?" she demanded insistently. "Tell me how I'm like _them_."

He blinked at her vehement sneering inflection of disgust on the last word she had spoken. Oddly she had managed to copy his tone perfectly and her flawless mimicry gave him an unexplained uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"You won't leave me alone," was his answer but as soon as the words left his lips he knew they would not be enough to satisfy her. He tried to come up with another excuse: "And I refuse to have friends."

To his utter disbelief, her muddy brown eyes lit up at his last comment. She smiled widely and there was a determined edge in her posture. A little too late, he realised that she had interpreted his comment as a challenge.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked pointedly with a touch of irritation. He really just wanted to be rid of her and her intrusive presence, a simple concept she never quite seemed to understand.

She shrugged in response and gestured vaguely in the direction of the east wing end of the Hogwarts campus. "No one notices when I don't show up to class."She bit her lip and furrowed her brow. "Well, no one except for Professor Snape, that is," she amended. She curled her lip in undisguised loathing for her Chemistry professor. "But I get excellent marks in all of my classes so I assume the professors do not feel the need to report my excessive absences to the Headmaster or to my parents."

"Really." His tone was his usual unconcerned detachedness but his bluey-grey eyes were alight with intrigue. "You just . . . skive off classes when you feel like it? And no one cares?"

She glared at him sternly. "If you tattle my secrets, I swear I'll –"

He waved off her empty warning with an impatient hand. He got enough half-threats at home and he knew that she didn't have it in her to follow up on her threat. "No, no, shut up. Tell me more about this skiving off class business."

She sighed. "Why do you only pay attention to the bad shit I do?" she asked rhetorically. "Here. Just wait with me until the tardy bell for fifth period ends. You can skive off with me as long as you promise not to insult me for a whole week."

"Sure, sure," he said flippantly, not really listening to her (as usual).

"I'm serious, Draco," she said, her arms folded across her chest. "If we're going to be friends, you have to listen to me."

He rolled her eyes at her stupid tendency to trust too easily. "We're never going to be friends," he stated bluntly. "And don't call me Draco."

"You probably don't even know what the word 'friend' means," she said lightly and walked in the opposite direction of him.

He watched her go. Indecision tugged his mind: on the one hand, he really didn't want to associate with the annoying bossy girl but on the other hand, he desperately wanted to get out of History class. "All right, all right," he muttered to himself and walked briskly to catch up to her.

She knew he was going to follow her, she just didn't know how long it would take him to consciously make the decision. She was rather surprised that she had only made it about eighteen paces away before he had run up to her. She was expecting to have to keep walking until the next month or something ridiculous like that.

"I hate you, you know," he informed her to keep appearances up.

"Oh, I know," she responded lightly and seemingly unaffectedly. She wondered what she would have to do to make him change his mind. But, she'd been watching him interact with other people on campus and she had come to the conclusion that he pretty much hated everybody so she shouldn't take it so personally.

They headed in the direction of the forest that flanked the southern edge of campus. It was a dark and dangerous forest which was why it had earned the moniker of the Forbidden Forest. The Headmaster employed a fulltime gatekeeper to watch over the entrances to the forest to make sure no student accidentally or voluntary wandered into the gloomy woods. However, it seemed that was where Hermione was taking him to spend the hour of fifth period.

"Are you mental?" he hissed when they only had a couple more metres to walk before they had crossed over into the Forbidden Forest.

"Shh," she whispered. "Hagrid will know what we're up to if you keep stomping about."

"I don't stomp," he answered in an offended tone. She threw him an exasperated look in response and placed her index finger over her lips. "What? I don't," he reiterated sullenly.

There was a hut where Hagrid, the gatekeeper of the school grounds, lived. Smoke billowed out frequently through the chimney and the curtains were closed on all of the hut's windows. The hut lay on the edge of the Forbidden Forest and made it seem nearly impossible to bypass without getting caught by Hagrid. However, Hermione was a stubborn girl and when she put her mind to something she did everything in her power to make sure she would succeed. She had snuck past Hagrid's hut many times before, and she was certain she could do it again (as long as a certain blond would make a better effort to imitate James Bond instead of Bigfoot).

"He has a dog," she whispered in warning. "His name is Fang."

"Oh, goodie!" he responded sarcastically. "So you think it is relevant to share the dog's name with me? The same dog that is going to sniff us out of the forest and get us expelled from school?"

She stared at him. "You really are a drama queen."

He glared at her but he knew that anything else he said would be used against him at a later point in time. He wisely kept his mouth shut for the remainder of the time she spent strategising the best way to sneak in to the Forbidden Forest.

"Okay," she murmured. "Make a beeline for that oak tree straight across from us. Stick to the shadows and _don't_ stomp."

"I don't stomp," he muttered in annoyance but did what she said because she was his ticket to getting out of History class. She must be blind, though, because once he was halfway to the oak tree he realised there weren't actually that many shadows to hide in what with that midday sun blazing brighter than a fireworks show in the sky.

"What are you doing?" she hissed at him. "Don't stop; keep going!" He was raving mental to have paused out in the wide open. She wondered once more why she was showing him her top-secret hiding place. By the looks of it, he was going to get both of them expelled.

He rolled his eyes at her but then muttered a panicked "Shit". A glance in the direction of Hagrid's hut let her know why he was sprinting his ass off all of the sudden.

"C'mon!" he whispered urgently. "You gotta cross over now!"

She bit her lip indecisively. The curtains of Hagrid's hut had fluttered open, affording the gatekeeper an excellent view in their direction. There was a mighty _crreeak_ of wood, and then front door was unbolted.

"Who's thar?" the giant of a man bellowed in his heavy accent. "Ye know students ain't allowed in the fores'. Ye best be showin' yerself righ' now. Else I gotta report ye to the Headmaster."

She really did have to haul ass if she wanted to make it out of Hagrid's line of sight. From the other side of the clearing, Draco was staring at her from the safety of the Forbidden Forest with half-fearful/half-_are-you-fucking-kidding-me_ eyes. There was no doubt about it that he wanted her to hurry up and make a decision soon.

He watched the steely resolve creep into her large, expressive eyes. There was an edge of determination in her jaw, and she cast one last furtive look in the gatekeeper's direction. Then, she was flying.

"Hey! You! Stop righ' thar!" she heard Hagrid say but she kept running as if her ass was on fire. She bowled over Draco but as he fell down like a bowling pin, she grabbed his arm and dragged him along with her deeper into the forest near her secret hideaway.

There was a bit of cursing and blundering on Hagrid's part as he attempted to seek them out but it seemed as if he was only half-assing his job because he stopped trailing them after a few minutes. The two children held their breaths and tried to calm their racing heartbeats. They were hidden out of sight up in one of the trees – previously Hermione had been wandering in the forest one day and had come across this abandoned tree house. It groaned and creaked (sometimes it even shrieked) but it was a spot of isolation for her away from the cruelty of the real world. She felt like Draco perhaps needed to find solace in the Shrieking Shack as well.

"Congrats," she grinned after Hagrid's footsteps faded away back in the direction of Hogwarts. "You're now officially schooled on how to skive out of class. It's sort of exciting, isn't it . . . breaking the rules."

His only response was a glare and an incensed: "What Hagrid does qualifies as stomping. _I_ don't stomp."

* * *

**Author's Note: Hi, I'd like to say HOWDY! to the reviewer who's lighting the fire on my ass to get going with posting another chapter of Drops of Jupiter. It's been slow and steady progress, and I've had a few setbacks (apparently somebody on this site thinks that it is the "worst story ever" and that it has "no plot") but I am working on Chapter 13: Heaven is Overrated. Thank you for being so lovely and impatient. I really do hope the long wait is worth it in the end.**

**xoxo M**


	5. five

5

She was a good girl with a bit of a rebel streak. He was a sociopath with no interest in being a social butterfly. She was tired of being invisible and unnoticed; he thought she was the brightest, most conspicuous person he had ever met. She had two parents who loved her dearly and thought the world of her. He had two parents who ignored him more often than not and viewed him as a disappointing failure. She thrived on love; he demanded attention. She secretly liked his surly disposition because it made those few rare smiles of his all the more covetable. He secretly liked that she never abandoned him no matter how many times he verbally and physically pushed her away.

It was the last day of First Year, and they were out in the Forbidden Forest hiding in their Shrieking Shack. Draco had finally gotten over his aversion of the gloomy forest and actually preferred the Shack to the Whomping Willow because the Shack was more secluded and private. Also, it was high up enough in the tree that if he sat with his back on the base of the trunk, Hermione's feet could not dangle down and clunk him on the head. (She swore that it was an accident each time her feet just so happened to come into contact with the back of his head but he didn't believe her smirking little face.) The tardy bell for sixth period rang, but neither of them moved from their positions in the tree house shack.

"What are your plans for over the summer?" she inquired him.

He shrugged and stared at the floorboards. "Climb a few trees, I guess."

She shot him a disappointed look. She was happy that he would be working on overcoming his fear of heights but she had wanted a more solid and realistic answer from him. He studiously ignored her and her inquisitive gaze; it no longer bothered him that she couldn't seem to mind her own business but there were still some things about his personal life that he was not comfortable sharing with her.

"_I'm_ going to Australia for a few weeks in July," she informed him with just a hint of boasting that she was getting to go jet off the European continent to leave for the Southern Hemisphere.

"Good for you," he said flatly. His parents never took him anywhere unless they had some sort of social climbing to do. Paris and Vienna were the two main destinations of his vacations these days since his mother was of French and Austrian heritage. He hated her side of the family and dreaded the days he had to schmooze with the Black family.

She absent-mindedly twirled a lock of frizzy brown hair around her finger. "Want me to bring you back a souvenir?" she asked after a moment.

"I'd rather you just miss your flight and stay in Australia," he quipped. She rolled her eyes at him, knowing that he was joking for the most part but still, it stung sometimes when he said such candid things. Hermione knew that perhaps he didn't crave her company but she had a strong feeling that he preferred her presence rather than her absence, and that was enough for her to believe that they were truly friends.

"Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?" she asked him dreamily. She loved to think about a place far, far away from here that was exotic and beautiful and a piece of personal heavenly paradise. She didn't know where such a place existed but she vowed to find it one day.

He shrugged again and shifted positions so that he was lying on his stomach. With a finger, he traced the swirl pattern of the knots of wood in the floorboards. "Away, I guess."

Predictably, she was not satisfied with his answer. "How far away?" she pressed.

He shot her an annoyed glance. "Far enough away that it isn't here," he replied with a snarky round-about answer.

"I would want to go to the moon," she said, filling in the silence since he obviously wasn't going to say any more. "Or to the edge of the universe. Wouldn't that be lovely?"

"Bloody terrifying, I should think."

"I think it would be enlightening," she corrected him. "To see all the stars and the galaxies and to know that we're just a tiny puzzle piece that makes up this big whole universe."

"God, you're depressing," he mumbled. "Who would want to realise just how insignificant and unimportant they are in the grand scheme of things?"

"Someone who knows that the world doesn't revolve around them!" she shot back, sick and tired of his self-centred attitude.

He propped his chin up on his elbows and regarded her coolly. "Is that what you truly think of me?"

She flushed crimson and averted her eyes. "No, of course not," she said casually.

Those bluey-grey eyes of his penetrated through her lie, though, and peeled her skin away layer by layer until he was staring straight in to her soul. "Am I really so egotistical?"

"Draco . . . ."

He stared at her, wondering why he cared what she thought of him and why it was so prudent for him to appear to be a decent human being in her eyes. He hated being subjected to her judgment (to anyone's, really) and wished for once he could just be himself and not have to live up to the pressure of everyone's expectations. He wished that he wasn't such a failure and a disappointment. He wished he could be so philosophical and free to the world like she was. But he was tied down to the earth, too afraid of heights to let himself soar and fly in the heavens.

"What have you done to me?" he asked her in a low, hoarse voice. Here he was, a boy of eleven who was used to solitude and the shadows of life, thrust into a world of starlight and tree houses because of _her_.

Sadly, she smiled and replied: "I became your friend."

* * *

**Author's Note: Eleven is the year when you want everyone to see that you possess the mature worldliness of an adult but at the same time realise you're still an innocent kid at heart. Hope you had a wonderful 2013 and wishing you all the best this 2014! xoxo Safari  
**


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